The study of Jesus Christ in comparative mythology is the examination of the narrative of the life of Jesus in the Christian gospels, traditions and theology, as it relates to Christian mythology and other religions.
For over a century, various authors have drawn a number of parallels between the Christian views of Jesus and other religious or mythical domains. These include Greco-Roman mysteries, ancient Egyptian myths, and more general analogies involving cross-cultural patterns of dying and rising gods in the context of Jesus myth theory.
While some scholars continue to support these analogies, others contend that the parallels are often without historical basis.
Read more about Jesus Christ In Comparative Mythology: Comparative Mythology
Famous quotes containing the words jesus, christ, comparative and/or mythology:
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
—Bible: New Testament Matthew, 27:46.
The words of Jesus were anticipated in Psalms 22:1.
“Ah, when shall come love’s courage to be strong!
Tell me, O Lord—tell me, O Lord, how long
Are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross!”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
“That hour in the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)